9412830 Caulton Indiana Univ. - Bloomington Dr. Kenneth G. Caulton, Chemistry Department, University of Indiana at Bloomington, is supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Organometallic Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division for an investigation of the structure and function of hydrogen ligands which are attached to catalytically active late transition metals. Methods of forming complexes of osmium, platinum, and rhodium which contain hydride and dihydrogen ligands will be developed. The kinetics and thermodynamics of ligand binding and exchange, and the mechanism of magnetic exchange within these molecules will be evaluated. Attempts will be made to extend dihydrogen coordination to new metals and to new oxidation states. The results of these studies will be utilized to design new catalysts for, in particular, olefin hydration. Hydrogen molecules may become activated by interacting metal atoms. This property has been exploited for a long time in both laboratory and industrial chemistry to increase the ability of hydrogen to undergo many reactions. In another respect, the interactions between hydrogen and metals has become an important topic with the increased interest in hydrogen as a clean fuel. This project will evaluate the fundamental ways in which hydrogen becomes attached to a metal. Using this data, new compounds containing hydrogen will be designed and a new method of performing the industrially very important addition of water to an unsaturated organic compound, i.e. "olefin hydration", will be developed.
